“Hey, why don’t you join me in a little celebration.” He waved the bottle in the air as if it might tempt the boy.
Crestfallen, Miguel grabbed his shoes and headed out, slamming the door behind him.
“Miguel, get back in here,” Russell called, stumbling to the door. “Don’t be mad. Come on, Miguel!” He watched the boy storm away into the refugee camp. Determined to explain himself, Russell took off after him. The hard-packed sand was still hot under his bare feet. Turning a corner, he arrived at the center of the temporary village.
A Jeep with speakers attached to the back was parked near a large campfire. One of Mitchell’s soldiers was standing in the back compartment of the vehicle talking into a microphone.
“…which is when we plan to launch the counteroffensive. Because we’re in a situation of depleted manpower, we’re asking for anyone with flight experience, anyone at all who can pilot a plane, to volunteer. Military training is preferable, but anyone who thinks they can handle a plane would be useful.”
“Hey! Me!” Russell yelled to the officer, pushing people out of his way in a hurry. “I fly. I mean, I’m a pilot. I got a plane, too!” In his enthusiasm, Russell pointed back toward his old de Haviland biwing, the bottle of J.D. still in his hand. Some of those in the crowd laughed.
“I’m sorry, sir, I don’t think so,” the soldier said, trying to be polite.
When Russell heard that, he got mad. Sloppy drunk and smelling like it, he moved in on the officer, vaguely threatening. He didn’t notice the MPs sliding their clubs free from their holsters. “You don’t understand, mister. I gotta be part of this. They ruined my whole life, and this is my chance to get revenge on those shitty little… things, guys, whatever they are.”
“Get rid of this joker,” the officer said quietly. A pair of military police grabbed Russell under his arms and escorted him roughly back the way he’d come, ignoring his blubberings about being abducted years before.
“You’re unfit to pilot a plane,” one of them said, turning him loose with a shove. “Go sleep it off somewhere. Maybe when you’re sober they’ll still need pilots.”
Russell watched them walk away, then lifted the bottle to his lips for another drink. Realizing what he was doing, he spit the booze out and threw the bottle hard against the ground, spraying shards of glass around his bare feet.
*
The big circular door to the storage lab was left ajar. Connie pushed it all the way open and found Julius sitting inside. The old guy faked a big smile.
“There you are, I’ve been looking for you,” she said, but her father-in-law only nodded and smiled back at her. She sniffed at the air and asked him, “Are you smoking in here?” Busted, Julius exhaled a big puff of smoke and brought the cigar out from behind his back.
“A little,” he admitted. “Don’t mention it to David. He’s such a health nut, he always gives me grief about my cigars.”
David’s health was precisely what she’d come to discuss. “I hope you’re not planning on letting him go through with this idiotic scheme of his, are you?”
“Letting? You see me letting him do anything? He’s a big boy.”
“A big baby is what he’s acting like. He’s going to get himself killed.”
Julius shrugged and glanced toward heaven. He knew there was no fighting David on this one. He was already committed.
Not finding the kind of support she was hoping for, Connie stomped away, frustrated, to the door. She turned back to say, “I don’t think you’re supposed to smoke in there.”
*
Stepping out of the Freak Show, Connie found David standing under the wing of the attack plane. Along with Steve Hiller and General Grey, he was listening to one of the staff scientists explain a last-minute addition to the ship. He was showing them the work his team had done to one of the gun turrets that hung like jet engines from the bottom of the spaceship, the one that had been torn away during the crash. They’d emptied out the six-foot-long structure and inserted a cylindrical frame. While that was going on, a crew of mechanics was very gingerly wheeling a two-ton bomb across the floor, a big baby in a steel cradle. Connie noted that these mechanics, in blue jumpsuits, were new faces, not part of the Area 51 staff. They were ground crew specialists who’d flown the bomb in from Arizona.
“We’ve done what we could to disguise it,” the scientist was saying of the hollowed-out turret, “but it’s not going to pass a real close inspection. The missile’s nose cone is going to protrude somewhat.”
The mechanics worked the crane dolly, keeping the bomb perpendicular to the floor as they lifted it up to the underside of the attacker. When the tail fins of the bomb were even with the cylindrical frame, the mechanics began the delicate process of loading it into the chute.
“Don’t anybody sneeze,” the chief mechanic told David and the others. “We had to put the warhead on there before we loaded it. If my boys drop that thing, it’ll be all she wrote.”
“Pretty powerful bomb, huh?” David asked, clueless.
All the military men turned and looked at him, surprised he hadn’t been informed.
The chief mechanic filled him in. “This, my friend, is a laser-guided cruise missile with a thermonuclear warhead slapped on the front end. If we drop that sucker, we all go boom, big time. And that’s why our man, Captain Hiller here, is going to be extra careful getting this ship out the door.”
David looked over at Steve, too surprised to actually form words.
Steve flashed him his trademark grin. “Piece of cake, Dave.” The young pilot’s audacity went a long way toward calming David’s nerves.
Before he had a chance to think twice about what he was getting himself into, the staff scientist went on with his lecture. “We found some room in the ship’s manifold and that’s where we hid the launcher. As you can see, we didn’t have any way to disguise the wiring, so we just welded it down to the surface. If you stand way back, you can’t even see it.”
General Grey stepped to a nearby table and picked up a small black box. “This will be attached to the ship’s main console.”
“It’s just like an AMRAAM launch pad on the B-2 Stealth,” Steve noted.
“That’s exactly right. Use it the same way. There’ll be one difference. We’ve programmed the nuke so it won’t detonate on impact. You’ll have another thirty seconds to get as far away as you can.”
David felt himself getting lightheaded. All the talk about nuclear explosions was going to make him pass out if he didn’t get his mind on something else. “I think I’ll go see how they’re doing with the radio transmitter.” As he started to stagger away, Steve checked his watch.
“Holy smokes, David, we’re late!”
David and Connie were the only two who knew what he was talking about. They told him not to worry, that they’d be there in time, as Steve jogged out of the hangar. David started toward the attacker to check on the progress his assistants were making inside when Connie stopped him.
“Thirty seconds? Maybe I’m a little dim or something, but isn’t thirty lousy seconds cutting it a little close when you’re trying to run from a nuclear explosion?”
“Not really. We’re not going to fire the bomb until we’re on our way out the door. Beside, that Hiller is supposed to be an amazing pilot.” A shower of sparks rained onto the platform as one of the technicians began welding a device to the bottom of the ship. When David looked his way, the man pulled off his welding mask.
“This is the strongest UHF transmitter we could get our hands on. It’ll tell us when you’ve uploaded the virus.”
“Right. Then we all cross our fingers and pray the shields go down.”
“Why you?” Connie wasn’t finished. “Why does it have to be you? I mean, isn’t it just a matter of pushing a button once you’re connected? Can’t you just show someone else how to plant the virus, somebody trained for this kind of mission?”
David wondered what she meant by trained for this kind of mission
. “I don’t think there’s ever been a mission like this. And if anybody’s trained for it, it’s me, because I designed the virus. What if something goes wrong, or doesn’t match the way I think it will? I’ll have to think fast, adjust the signal, or… who knows?” He walked over and picked up a soda can Mitchell had knocked to the floor. “Con, you know how I’m always trying to save the planet? This is my chance.”
He tossed the can into a government-mandated RECYCLE container, planted a kiss on Connie’s forehead, then rushed toward the attacker’s cockpit.
Connie watched him go with mixed emotions. Speaking out loud to no one in particular, she said, “Now he gets ambitious.”
*
When Jasmine asked where she could borrow a dress, everyone in the labs gave her the same hesitant response. “Try Dr. Rosenast,” they suggested, making it clear this was a last resort, something to be done only in the case of severe emergency.
After knocking repeatedly at the indicated door, Jas could hear someone muttering and cursing on the other side. Just as she was about to give up, the door was yanked open and she was confronted by a huge pair of bifocals with the face of a sixty-year-old woman behind them. She looked like a sweet old thing, round rosy cheeks and big blue eyes magnified even larger by her glasses. Her gray hair was carefully coifed into a towering hairdo, and beneath her lab coat, she was dressed to the nines in a forest green blazer and matching skirt made of high-quality silk. The crowded room behind her was a combination office/laboratory/living quarters, every inch of space crammed with scientific equipment and the woman’s personal effects. To Jasmine, she looked more like Santa Claus’s wife than one of the world’s leading electrical engineers.
“Dr. Rosenast, I hate to bother you but—”
“I already told that other son-of-a-bitch, it’s not ready,” she snapped.
The rebuilt alien attacker was scheduled to lift off in less than half an hour and she still hadn’t finished a crucial piece of technology: a combination wattage booster/power transformer that would run off the ship’s energy. Without it, David wouldn’t be able to use his computer to upload the virus and infect the mother ship’s signal.
“I’d be done already if it weren’t for all the fuckin’ interruptions!”
“I need to borrow a dress,” Jasmine interjected, “something to get married in.”
The old woman looked both ways down the hall as if to make sure she wasn’t on Candid Camera. When she was satisfied that Jasmine was serious, she pulled her inside and brought her to a closet overflowing with the outfits she’d collected during the dozen years she’d been living underground. “I live for mail order,” the woman admitted guiltily. “I think your tits are too big for what I’ve got here, but go ahead and borrow anything you like. I’ve got to get back to work.”
Jasmine rifled through the closet as the doctor went back to work on the transformer. The doctor was a real clothes horse, with a penchant for Chinese dresses with slits running dramatically up the sides. When does she wear these things? Jasmine wondered. Then her search came to an end with the discovery of a simple red sun dress with a pattern of white and yellow flowers. On her way to the door, Jas planted a kiss on the surprised woman’s cheek, then dashed off to the women’s locker room. Eight minutes later, she was showered, powdered, rouged, and wriggling into the dress. It fit the curvaceous Jasmine snugly.
“Dylan, zip me up.”
After struggling for a minute to bring the zipper to the top, the boy gave up. “It’s too tight.”
“Okay, I guess that’s good enough. Let’s go, kid, we’re late!”
It had been a long time since the men she passed in those hallways had seen anything like Ms. Dubrow. They were accustomed to seeing their female coworkers covered from head to toe in sterile white cotton. From the looks she was getting, Jasmine knew the dress was too tight, especially in the chest. Beginning to feel selfconscious, she asked Dylan, “How do I look, kiddo?” The boy put his hand out and wobbled it back and forth: so-so. “Oh, thanks,” she said, “you’re a lot of help.” They turned a corner and arrived at the chapel.
The space was a combination house of worship and recreation room. Stained glass windows with fluorescent lights behind them shone down on felt-covered poker tables. Area 51’s multidenominational minister, Chaplain Duryea, an elderly gentleman with an Einstein hairdo, had come in and pushed a Ping-Pong table out of the way. He shook hands with Jasmine and they stood talking for a few minutes until the others arrived.
“Somebody call the fire department before I burn to the ground!” Steve stood in the doorway, palms pressed to his cheeks. Admiring the way Jasmine looked in the dress, he came down the aisle and planted a kiss on her cheek. “You look… Jas-alicious.”
“You’re three minutes late,” she chided, showing him her wristwatch.
“You know me. I like—”
“I know, I know,” she finished the sentence for him, “you like to make a dramatic entrance.”
The chaplain put himself behind a lectern and made sure everything was ready. “Steve, do you have the ring?”
“You bet.” From the pocket of an Air Force jacket he’d borrowed, he produced the same leaping dolphin ring Jimmy had caught him with the day before.
“Witnesses?”
Just as he asked the question, David and Connie came through the door, both of them working feverishly on the necktie David had borrowed seconds before. They never did get it right and finally just let it dangle in a sloppy knot. They came forward and took their places on either side of the happy couple. When he could see that everything was set, Chaplain Duryea smiled and said, “Then let’s get this show on the road.”
The short ceremony proved to be as meaningful and as moving for the two witnesses as it was for the bride and groom. During the vows, Connie reached for David’s hand and toyed with the wedding ring she had given him years before.
*
The team of mechanics making repairs to a line of ten F-15s were putting on quite a show. Shouting instructions to one another, calling for tools to be handed up, they moved with the frantic grace of an Indy 500 pit crew. They were racing against the clock to make the sleek jet fighters air worthy. The sounds of rivet guns and pneumatic wrenches echoed off the walls. Similar work was going on in every corner of the gigantic hangar, which now stood packed to the gills with aircraft of every description.
As soon as the orders came upstairs around midnight, Major Mitchell’s crew had worked feverishly, scouring not just their own hangars, but the entire Nellis Weapons Testing Range, an area of approximately six hundred square miles, to gather up every working and half-working plane. Since Area 51’s ostensible purpose was R&D of experimental aircraft, they had accumulated quite a collection of planes over the years. Most of them were early models of standard American transport and attack planes, but there was also quite a number of specially-built prototypes, exotic ships that never went into production. Planes like the wedge shaped Martin X-29 and the awkward MSU Marvel Stol, with its turboprop engine set into a wind cone above the tail. These planes had been “liberated” from America’s enemy or “accidentally misdirected” from her allies.
The most exciting find had been the fleet of F-15s, stored in one of the half-underground storage hangars surrounding the “minibase” at Papoose Lake, nine miles to the north. Like many of the planes they found, the F-15s had missing parts, having been cannibalized over the years for the sake of other projects. A radar system was missing from one, while the tail fins had disappeared from another. Still, these planes were legitimate, state-of-the-art fighting machines that had one great advantage over almost all the others: there were missiles for them to fire. The five that could move under their own power taxied back to the main hangar; the other five were towed. The lead mechanic figured eight of them would be ready by the time the counteroffensive was scheduled to begin.
The base had received much-needed reinforcements, and quite a scare, when a score of F-111s arrived with
out warning at approximately two A.M. They were a group of foreign pilots-in-training and their army instructors who had been stranded at a proving grounds in the California desert when the invaders began to arrive. They had no way of responding to the message being broadcast from Area 51, so they decided to come and join the crowd. Only three of the pilots were experienced instructors. The other seventeen were trainees from allied countries: Czechs, Hondurans, and a group from Nigeria. Like most pilots around the world, they spoke English, the international language of aviation. There were no lights on the runways and they were fortunate not to have lost anyone during the landing.
Everyone in the hangar knew both the plan of attack and their odds of surviving it. Mitchell had made no bones about it, bluntly explaining that even if the shields came down, the aliens would still have them outnumbered and outgunned. At best, they could expect an aerial dogfight with the faster, tighter-turning attackers, the swarming flock which had downed thousands of jets worldwide while suffering only a single casualty. When Mitchell was done, he looked around and asked if anybody wanted out, told them it was better to quit now than once they were up in the air. No one said a word. “Good,” he told them, “because we’re going to need all the help we can get.”
The Jeep with loudspeakers was parked between the huge rolling doors. Mitchell got up on the back of it to assign the pilots to their planes. While the men were crowded together in a group, they were noisy, macho, and fearless, bragging to each other about all the ways they would crush their foes. But an hour later, the only noise in the room was the buzz and thump of mechanics’ tools. A few of the warriors spoke quietly to one another in groups, but the majority of them had wandered away to private corners, isolating themselves with their thoughts.
This was the scene the president found when the elevator doors slid open an hour before the makeshift air force was to head north and engage the West Coast city destroyer. Instead of his usual entourage, Whitmore brought only General Grey and one of his Secret Service agents along.
Complete Independence Day Omnibus, The Page 25